Dr. Dream Spotlights Guts, Fire of Ann De Jarnett

Nothing is certain in the music business, but judging from the quality on display at Night Moves in Huntington Beach on Friday night, Orange County’s Dr. Dream Records has a good chance to emerge as a noteworthy player on the national independent rock scene.

The label presented two of its four acts from the county and vicinity, along with a third band, National Peoples Gang, that has been negotiating a possible Dr. Dream deal.

In the show’s headliner, Ann De Jarnett, Dr. Dream has a striking talent--a singer with the guts and fire of her obvious model, Patti Smith. De Jarnett has the frosty bohemian beauty of ‘Til Tuesday’s Aimee Mann and a nimble, classically flavored touch on the electric violin. Once De Jarnett gets some exposure, this may be a hard combination for major labels to resist.

Patti Smith began as a non-singing poet who, by sheer force of rock attitude, turned herself into a key figure in the development of punk and New Wave music. De Jarnett comes from the opposite direction: She starts with a powerful, well-controlled voice, then reaches for the toughness and abandon associated with Smith. Her phrasing at Night Moves borrowed a little too reverently from her model, but almost everything De Jarnett sang hit with the force and immediacy of deeply personal expression.

A couple of slower numbers were a bit wooden, and it would have been nice if De Jarnett, whose violin parts tended toward the stately, had expanded upon the more fiery bowing that emerged in brief flickers. Her three-piece band was solid, but a more pumped-up, overtly passionate approach would help. De Jarnett clearly is the sort of frontwoman who could channel the fury of a rock-storm into something special.

Turbulence wasn’t lacking in National Peoples Gang’s set. After a promising start full of lean, tribal rhythms, slicing guitar work and Chad Jasmine’s manic, theatrical singing, the band aborted its show to do battle with a lone, skinhead heckler. From early salvos of words and a wad of paper, the exchange escalated suddenly with the tossing of a pitcher of water, a drink and two cartons of lettuce that Jasmine had brought on stage for some reason. It ended in a fracas on the dance floor when guitarist Chad Forrello leaped from the stage to tackle the band’s antagonist, who wound up being ejected.

“It was stupid of me to jump off the stage,” Forrello, who bruised his left hand in the tussle, admitted afterwards. It also was stupid of Jasmine to escalate a routine heckling by dousing the skinhead with water instead of drowning him in decibels. When confined to performance, that sort of volatility is one of National Peoples Gang’s best assets, a fine foil to the band’s artsier, British-influenced tendencies.

The Swamp Zombies, whose debut album, “Chicken, Vulture, Crow,” is set for release by Dr. Dream May 9, played a rough, rootsy set of acoustic stomps founded on an off-kilter blend of rockabilly, Cajun, country and calypso.

The quartet’s approach was loose but its rhythms were punchy and effective. The band’s attitude was appealingly punkish and irreverent, with funny, sardonic songs centering appreciatively on a variety of disreputable characters. In his raspy, bellowing baritone, singer Steve Jacobs introduced us with relish to such seamy folks as “Mr. Hate”--”He’s decency’s arch-enemy/He puts disease on toilet seats.”

The Swamp Zombies were a visual treat, too. Jacobs had painted his upright bass slime-green for the occasion, and with his bulk and bristly blond flattop haircut, he looked like a drill sergeant at punkers’ boot camp. Percussionist Gary McNeice wore an unvarying, deadpan expression and, with his too-short denim overalls, looked like a refugee from a Dexy’s Midnight Runners video.

With their irreverent transplantation of musical roots and their sloppily effective playing, the Swamp Zombies could find a spot in the hearts of fans of such acts as guitarist Eugene Chadbourne (common to his and their repertoires: acoustic renditions of Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” that aren’t just funny but technically impressive), the Mekons and the Violent Femmes.